Marc Comtois
George Will’s latest contains this information about pension reform in Illinois (not Texas, union-friendly, “progressive” Illinois): Gov. Pat Quinn called it a “political earthquake” when the state’s Legislature recently voted — by margins of 92-17 in the House and 48-6 in the Senate — to reform pensions for state employees. There is now a cap…
As I was driving around this morning, I heard from our corporate overlords on WPRO that RI Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was an “out of the box” candidate to fill the soon-to-be vacated Supreme Court seat currently held by Justice Stevens. Upon further research, it seems the idea was first floated by a contributor to the…
So the long-awaited supplemental budget has finally made it’s way to the RI House floor. According to Speaker of the House Gordon Fox, “This is a budget where everyone shares a little bit of the pain.” Well, at least, that was the plan: Changes are possible in the coming days, as evidenced by one reversal…
Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist has released the text of her State of Education speech (PDF)to the RI General Assembly. In it, she charts a course for improving RI’s education system via a holistic approach. She also explains where RI needs to improve in its next Race-to-the-top bid: …we lost points because we don’t…
….why not us? According to the Wall Street Journal: Government employees on average have higher pay and bigger benefits than the private-sector employees who support them with taxes. This has become a well known fact. When private firms run extended losses—spending more money than they take in—their employees must share in the necessary adjustments. But…
As Justin mentioned earlier this week, I’m now on Twitter. I’ve long toyed with the idea because, frankly, I often think that sometimes all I need to say on something can be done in a pithy sentence or two and not paragraphs of well thought out prose. So if it seems I have been mum…
I’ve heard chatter about how, perversely, the flood disaster here in Rhode Island could turn out to be some sort of blessing. Why? Because the Federal Disaster Area tag brings with it Federal dollars that can be used to rebuild infrastructure damaged in the storm. And whereas Bastiat’s parable of the Broken Window certainly applies…
As Congressman Kennedy famously said, “WATER….” I’ve been lucky enough to still be able to work during the day and save the sloshing and pumping for the evening hours. Our property abuts a little babbling brook that turned into a quick-flowing stream over the last few days and the water went 4-5 ft. higher than…
Big Business learns that Big Government giveth and taketh away: On Capitol Hill and in the White House on Monday, Democrats were fuming over a series of announcements that started Friday from Fortune 500 firms saying their bottom lines will take huge negative hits because of changes in tax law mandated by Obamacare. That hit…
I jumped the gun a bit last Friday. Now I’m not: RI didn’t win in Round 1 of the Race to the Top sweepstakes (and a tweet by EdComm Gist confirms) UPDATE: RI finished 8th: Delaware and Tennessee won bragging rights Monday as the nation’s top education innovators, besting the District and 13 other finalists…